


relativity

by ObscureReference



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Spoilers, Kidnapping, M/M, Pre-Slash, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Unconsciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 13:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20725277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: “So you andFlaynboth bear the Crest of Cethleann?”There was an edge to Tomas’s voice when he said the nameFlaynthat Linhardt had never caught before.He frowned up at Tomas. “Flayn and I are not related, if that’s what you’re getting at.”





	relativity

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during Chapter 6 of the game! So spoilers for what happens in that section. Also some implied spoilers for stuff later on! So don't read until you're pretty far into the game/have finished it, probably.

Linhardt jerked upright with a strangled gasp.

He found himself sitting up straight before he even registered being fully awake, his eyes refusing to adjust to the dim, disorienting light of the library. It took rubbing the heel of his palms against his eyes and several deep breaths before the flickering shadows on the walls receded into something more recognizable, if not less menacing.

There was nobody else in the library, he noted, looking around. Only books and the drool stain Linhardt had left on the table. Everyone else had long since left, it seemed. How strange.

Given the dwindling number of lit lamps around the room, Linhardt judged that it must have been quite late in the evening. He had probably missed dinner. It was odd that Caspar hadn’t come to find him if that was the case, but stranger things had happened. Perhaps Caspar had found himself in the midst of yet another fight and had gotten distracted, he thought. He might have gone looking for Caspar if his lingering drowsiness didn’t keep him so firmly glued to his chair.

Waking up with such a start, too, was strange. Usually Linhardt found himself rejoining the world of the waking gradually. Often reluctantly. To jerk awake so roughly on his own—that was out of the ordinary as well.

It was to be a night full of oddities, it seemed.

He looked down at his notes—now crumpled from the force of his cheek and sporting several new wet spots—and scanned the pages.

After a moment of reading, he remembered what he’d been doing in the library in the first place. Crest research didn’t do itself, unfortunately.

And with that thought, Linhardt also remembered _why _he’d slept so uneasily. It wasn’t every day one of the students of the monastery had been kidnapped, after all.

Scratch that. Flayn wasn’t a student, exactly. But she was Seteth’s little sister, and that made her _something_. Something to Seteth, certainly. And perhaps something to some other interested parties, if the rumors of Flayn having rather “unique” blood going around held any truth to them.

Blood. Ugh. He didn’t want to think about that part very much.

Flayn was becoming something of interest to Linhardt too. It was such a shame that she had gone missing just when he had learned about her crest. Granted, it was a shame Flayn had gone missing at all. He certainly hoped the knights found her safe and sound soon enough. Linhardt never would have wished the girl any ill, and of course her safety came first before anything else.

But if they found her safe and sound and Flayn was open to some questioning later, there would be no reason not to take advantage of such an opportunity, right? Crests had caught Linhardt’s attention as of late, and he did not want to pass up the opportunity to see such a rare one in person. Perhaps even see it in action if possible.

There were so many things he could learn from a Major Crest of Cethleann if the rumors were true. Linhardt imagined his own Minor Crest paled in comparison.

However, that was a thought for later. For after Flayn was returned safely and her brother loosened his protective grip a little. Seteth would definitely be the first obstacle Linhardt would have to get around if he wanted to talk to Flayn without a third-party butting in every other question. He wasn't looking forward to it.

The man had already sent all the knights into the surrounding area to search high and low, and still Seteth insisted on circling the nearby towns atop his wyvern as though he could spot one little girl amongst a sea of hundreds. Assuming she wasn’t being kept in some building against her will, that was.

Linhardt frowned to himself at the thought. Perhaps he could understand Seteth’s worry, even if his reactions did seem a little extreme in the day-to-day. No matter Linhardt’s own interest in her, he truly did hope Flayn was alright.

His own worrying wouldn’t change anything, however. Certainly not at this hour. It was time to sleep again, preferably in his own bed.

He winced when he began to gather up his notes and felt his back twinge with pain. Sleeping hunched over in a chair hadn’t done him any favors.

Stacking up the books he’d picked out earlier didn’t take but a minute, nor did arranging the sloppy notes he’d written with tired hands. If cleaning up took a little longer than strictly necessary, however, there was nobody around to chastise him for it.

He briefly debated re-shelving the books he’d picked out earlier but decided to leave them on the table where they lay. It was too late to be fumbling around bookshelves in the dark in search of one or two thin gaps where the right book might fit. Somebody else would take care of the mislaid books in the morning. And if they didn’t, Linhardt could just pick up where he’d left off when he returned tomorrow.

Despite Linhardt’s slow movements, it only took a moment to tidy up. By the time he finished, he was sincerely comparing the merits of simply falling back asleep where he sat. His bed certainly would have been more comfortable, but it also required trudging down the stairs and stumbling across the lawn in the dark until he found his dorm again.

Thank goodness he’d convinced Caspar to switch rooms with him. Linhardt would have laid back down right there if he had to walk _up_ another set of stairs just to get back to his bedroom.

Speaking of bedrooms, wasn’t there a curfew now? Linhardt couldn’t remember if one had actually been enacted or if he’d simply overhead the discussion of such in passing. He couldn’t imagine why nobody had come to find him if they were really that worried about other students being kidnapped. So he wasn’t probably going to get in trouble for that, at least.

Unless—

A heavy hand clamped down on Linhardt’s shoulder.

He jumped at the sudden weight, neck snapping upwards. A scream caught in his throat without a sound—

The kindly visage of Tomas the librarian looked back at him.

“My, my,” Tomas said, either ignoring or unaware of how badly he’d started Linhardt. “Young Linhardt, isn’t it? What are you doing here so late at night?”

“Ah.” It took a moment to remember how speaking worked. Linhardt’s heart fluttered in his chest like a hummingbird. How ridiculous to be afraid of somebody like Tomas, he chided himself. Though how the elderly man had managed to sneak up on Linhardt so quietly was somewhat curious. “I fell asleep earlier and woke up just now. I was planning on going back to bed.”

He waited for a moment for something further, but Tomas just nodded. After an awkward beat of silence, Linhardt said, “What brings you here so late?”

Tomas’s eyebrows rose. “Me? I’m the librarian. These books are under my safekeeping.”

“Quite.” Linhardt glanced around briefly. Aside from the two of them, the room was still empty. “But as you just said, it is quite late. Why did you come here when you should be sleeping yourself?”

Tomas’s hand hadn’t let up from his shoulder. Linhardt thought about mentioning it, but he suspected Tomas’s hand was as much a friendly greeting as it was to help the old man keep balance. He figured it was a bad idea to embarrass the man in control of the monastery’s flow of knowledge, so he bit his tongue.

“Oh, I simply couldn’t sleep,” Tomas said. “It’s just dreadful, isn’t it? Flayn going missing, that is. I supposed a short walk might clear my head.”

He didn’t sound very troubled to Linhardt, but he had to admit it was a reasonable enough explanation.

“Is that so?” Linhardt said rhetorically, fingering his notes. He had decided not to stick around the library after all. His bed sounded more appealing than carrying on a conversation any longer. “It is quite dreadful, yes. But don’t worry too much just yet. It’s only been a few days. I’m sure Flayn will turn up just fine.”

They felt like empty words. But Linhardt, like everyone else, had no other leads as to Flayn’s whereabouts so far, good or bad. Considering the worst without further information wasn’t helpful to anyone.

Tomas shook his head.

“These things weigh on an old man’s mind differently, you know,” he said. “I’ve been around for a long time. Perhaps younger people simply wouldn’t understand.”

Linhardt shrugged. That may have been true enough. “If that’s the case, I should leave you to your walk then,” he said, trying to end the conversation. “Goodnight.”

Tomas did not move, nor did the faint but kindly smile fade from his expression.

“Actually, if you don’t mind me asking…”

When he saw Linhardt looking up at him expectantly, smile widened.

“Is what I heard about Flayn’s Crest true?” Tomas lowered his voice as though it were a secret he was imparting onto Linhardt. “She bore the Major Crest of Cethleann, did she not?”

“So I’ve heard,” Linhardt said, wondering if Tomas was interested in Crests as well. He had never heard the man mention them before, but there was a first time for everything. “It may just be a rumor, mind you. I didn’t get the chance to ask her myself before she vanished.”

Tomas nodded solemnly. “Of course. I only ask because I can’t help but wonder if that’s why dear Flayn has been taken from us, you see. I can’t imagine what anyone would want with the poor girl otherwise.”

“We don’t know for sure yet that she’s been kidnapped,” Linhardt pointed out, though that option was the likeliest at this point. “But… that could be one reason, yes.”

The other rumors, the whispers about Flayn having some other secret, wandered through his head. For some reason, he decided not to repeat them.

Despite that, Tomas’s eyebrows raised slightly. “You don’t sound very certain of that. Do you suspect there might be something else going on here?”

The weight of Tomas’s hand on his shoulder was beginning to feel like a burden.

Linhardt shrugged again, saying nothing. He was still waiting for this conversation to be over with. Normally he would have brushed off Tomas’s attempts at carrying on a conversation and simply left the room, but still, it seemed a bad idea to be intentionally rude to the man in charge of the library Linhardt lingered in so often.

Tomas hummed. When he braced himself and took a look around the room thoughtfully, his fingers squeezed Linhardt’s shoulder with a surprising amount of strength for a man so aged. Linhardt winced. Again, Tomas did not seem to notice.

The majority of the lamps hanging along the walls had burnt themselves out during his nap, Linhardt noted. He thought one or two more had flickered out in the last few minutes as well. The libarary had become rather dim. It was hard to imagine what Tomas seemed to be staring at with such intent. Or was he simply thinking about something else altogether?

Linhardt shifted his chair and yawned into his free hand. His self-restraint was wearing thin.

“If that’s—”

“Say, you have a Crest too, don’t you?” Tomas said, cutting him off. “A Minor Crest of Cethleann, isn’t that right?”

Linhardt was vaguely surprised Tomas had remembered that. But Linhardt was a noble, after all, and his Crest was not a secret, so in truth it shouldn’t have been surprising that the man in charge so much history knew about the student’s Crests.

Still, there was something nagging at him.

“Correct,” Linhardt said slowly.

“So you and _Flayn_ both bear the Crest of Cethleann?”

There was an edge to Tomas’s voice when he said the name _Flayn_ that Linhardt had never caught before.

He frowned up at Tomas. “Flayn and I are not related, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

He had checked.

“No,” Tomas said, so low Linhardt could have mistaken him for speaking to himself. “No, of course not. You couldn’t be.”

Linhardt stared. A sense of unease had settled into his spine, but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to brush off Tomas’s heavy hand and stand on his own two feet. The air had thickened to an almost distressing degree.

He couldn’t put a name to the strange feeling suddenly settling along his spine, but if pressed, Linhardt might have said he felt _afraid._

Afraid of _Tomas_? His thoughts swirled with curious surprise. Why would he—

“You couldn’t be,” Tomas said again, louder. But there was something… considering, perhaps, about the way he said it. “Cethleann never had any children, did she? Never even married. Not according to any of the texts, at least.”

A beat passed before Linhardt realized that Tomas was waiting on a reply. He opened and closed his mouth twice before he found the words.

“Not—according to any texts, no,” he said, eyes darting to the door. Mind working overtime, he said slowly, “However, her bloodline must have carried on somehow. There are others in the world bearing the Crest of Cethleann, after all. Other Major Crests, at that.”

“I’m aware. But isn’t it strange?”

One of the few remaining lamps burnt itself out in that moment. The uneven shadows lining on the library’s walls had grown dark and wide.

Tomas’s cold finger brushed his neck.

“You both have green hair,” he said.

Linhardt’s breath caught in his throat. He stared, caught like a deer in torchlight and feeling just as suddenly vulnerable, and watched as Tomas’s skin seemed to pale, to _gray_ at the edges. Then—

Then there was nothing.

* * *

_“I can do it myself! Just let me go!”_

_“Caspar, your shoulder—"_

_“It’s nothing! I can still carry him!”_

Those voice.

By the Goddess, Linhardt had never felt so exhausted in his life. Which was truly saying something. He might have been surprised at himself, but he didn’t have the energy for even that.

He didn’t have the energy for _anything_. His thoughts were sluggish and hard to form. Even the voices circling his head went in one ear and out the other. It felt as though he were teetering on the brink of a great darkness, and it was only a matter of time before Linhardt inevitably went slipping back into the abyss.

Reason, coherency, slid through his fingers like—

Like—

_“Linhardt, can you hear me? Now’s really not the time to be sleeping anymore!”_

_“Fool, don’t jostle him around like that. We don’t know if he’s sustained any injuries.”_

_“Who is this other girl?”_

_“Flayn, can you hear us?”_

_“Caspar, _please_.”_

_“Linhardt!”_

Caspar.

Linhardt clawed through the darkness towards that voice—the voice that had flitted in and out of his childhood, that yelped a familiar cry during thunderstorms, that bounced around from behind his bedroom door in the morning with a reminder that they had to get up for breakfast. He latched on to the sound of Caspar with a resolve he never would have thought himself of having before.

And somehow, he cracked open his eyes.

The world was blurry, and colors swirled in his vision.

But—there.

“Linhardt?” Caspar asked worriedly, more a smear of blue and familiar sweat smell than person. His fuzzy outline peered so closely at Linhardt that their foreheads might have been touching. _Were_ they touching? It seemed like a bad sign that Linhardt couldn’t feel it. “Are you awake now?”

“Keep moving,” somebody commanded. Hubert? “These three need medical attention. Do not stop to chat.”

Caspar ignored them, so Linhardt did too. But—they _were_ moving, he thought, noting the way the corners of his vision blurred even more than Caspar. So maybe Caspar was listening. Or was that just Linhardt’s currently poor eyesight playing tricks on him?

He could feel himself slipping away again.

“Sorry,” Caspar said, sounding a little out of breath now. “We’re almost at the top. So just hold on until we get you to Manuela, okay?”

He felt so numb and small. Caspar was holding him—must have been holding him, must have been carrying Linhardt back from somewhere—but he couldn’t feel it. He could barely register the conversation going on around him at all.

Despite not being able to feel anything, just knowing Caspar was nearby somehow made the empty space in Linhardt’s head more bearable. He didn’t want to fade away into the Caspar-less darkness again.

Linhardt tried very hard to focus on something, anything, to remain conscious.

“Once we get through this, I’m going to make you join me in the training yard more often.” Caspar sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth—a pained sound. “I’m just warning you now. We’re going to have to work on your defenses a lot more after this. No excuses.”

Caspar’s hair was—blue. Yes, that was right. It was blue. So that’s what Linhardt was staring at.

The gold and white must have been part of Caspar’s uniform, he realized. He forced himself to remember what it looked like.

His thoughts were so distant. Hard to grasp.

The uniform was black too, he thought, but he couldn’t discern the uniform’s black from the darkness creeping back into his vision.

And among the blue and white and gold, there was red. An ugly smear of the stuff against the white of what might have been Caspar’s shoulder or neck. Loathing rolled through Linhardt in waves before he remembered why a mere color disgusted him so.

“Almost there,” Caspar said again, voice low. Determined.

Linhardt grunted a sound unintelligible to his own ears.

“What was that?”

He tried again. “B…”

His mouth was too dry, his tongue to swollen and clumsy to cooperate. He couldn’t even form the sentence in his head before speaking. But somehow Caspar seemed to understand.

“Huh?” The blue Caspar smear bobbed, and the red in Linhardt’s vision shifted. “Oh, sorry, I know you don’t like blood. I promise to wash your uniform for you if it stains. It’s not yours, so don’t worry. Hey, are you listening? Linhardt?”

The blue had disappeared, as had the gold and white. Linhardt’s eyes had fallen shut of their own accord.

“H—Hey, stay with me!”

_Cold, _he tried to say, but his mouth still didn’t work right.

His tenuous grasp on the waking world began to fray.

“Linhardt?”

“Caspar, keep up!”

“Are you needing a hand, Caspar?

“I—No, I’ve got him. Keep going, Petra!”

* * *

Darkness—somehow lighter this time. Less frightening. More floaty.

He teetered on the edge of awareness. His thoughts came and went in fragmented words and pictures, each one dissipating before they had a chance to fully form in the first place.

A weight on his hand. Tight and warm. Nearly painful.

Breath on his cheek. Whispered words.

Linhardt slipped back into unconsciousness.

* * *

“So you really don’t remember anything?” Caspar asked for what must have been the millionth time.

Linhardt sighed loudly. “No, Caspar. I have not miraculously recovered any repressed memories since you last asked me four minutes ago.”

“I’m just wondering!” Caspar protested. He made a broad gesture that could have meant anything, seemingly forgetting that he was wearing his training gauntlets. Linhardt watched him carefully for any sign that his shoulder was still injured, but it seemed to have healed up just fine under the accelerated influence of some potions and spells. “It’s not every day your best friend gets kidnapped by someone as scary as the Death Night! I can’t help being curious.”

“Your curiosity would be better off directed elsewhere then.”

“Come on! Don’t you want to know?”

“Of course,” Linhardt said, adjusting his book so he could both read and see Caspar at the same time. “If I could recover those missing hours and reveal to you and the professor who had taken myself, Flayn, and that other girl and for what purpose, I would. But I cannot. And asking me about it every two seconds does not help.”

If Linhardt could have remembered anything after going to the library for some personal research that afternoon, saying it would sate his own curiosity would have been an understatement. But as things stood now, he could remember nothing before waking up in the infirmary and finding Caspar keeping a sleepy vigil in a chair by his beside, fresh bandages peeking out of the corner of his dirty uniform. Remembering what happened before that would have been a great relief to the unanswered questions bouncing around in his head on a multitude of levels.

Though not quite a relief to Caspar, he suspected, eyeing his friend as he took several more phantom swings at invisible enemies.

Caspar was practically vibrating out of his skin with unanswered questions of his own, not to mention outrage on behalf of whoever had grabbed Linhardt and Flayn in the first place. Linhardt appreciated Caspar’s refreshing sincerity in that regard.

But he had also known Caspar for years, and it was obvious to him that there was a bit more to Caspar’s constant hovering than simply his keen sense of justice.

Something had happened between his kidnapping and subsequent rescue. Something Caspar was notably eager to see if Linhardt recalled.

“Alright, alright,” Caspar relented. He dropped his fighting stance and rolled a shoulder to work out some of the tension there. “I’ll stop asking, sheesh. Sorry about being a little concerned about _my good friend_ who was _kidnapped _recently.”

Linhardt hummed, unconvinced. He turned the page in his book.

“Speaking of which—” Caspar barreled onward. “You should be training too, Linhardt! I told you that you needed to work on your defenses more. You need to be prepared in case someone tries to kidnap you again!”

“I highly doubt that will happen. Flayn may have her secrets, but I can’t see why I was taken alongside her in the first place, and I doubt anyone would be making any further attempts now that the most recent one has been foiled.” What a mouthful. Just saying so much at once had tired him out.

Then he paused, considering. “When did you tell me that I needed to work on my defenses?”

“When you were down in that underground passage,” Caspar said, frowning. “What, you don’t even remember that much?”

Linhardt outright groaned this time. “Caspar—”

“Okay, okay! I get it. Sorry.” Caspar dropped his arms back to his sides. “I was just wondering.”

Despite his frustration, Linhardt noticed the tips of Caspar’s ears were red. He wasn’t looking Linhardt in the eye either—like another memory had surfaced in his mind to distract him. Likely something about Linhardt being rescued from the underground passage with Flayn and that other girl.

Linhardt truly did not remember a thing from that time.

That said, he had a good idea of what he was forgetting. There weren’t many things that could make a man like Caspar outright _blush_, after all.

Linhardt looked at him with new intention.

“Hey, are you hungry?” Caspar blurted, likely feeling Linhardt’s eyes on him. He was hastily shedding his gauntlets. “All this training makes me want to eat.”

He huffed affectionately. Oh well. If Caspar wasn’t going to say anything, far be it from Linhardt to be the one to break the status quo first.

“Watching you work up a sweat and jump around like that is exhausting,” he agreed. “So I suppose I could accompany you to the dining hall early today.”

“Great!”

Caspar rushed through putting his training equipment back where it belonged. Linhardt yawned and watched him get ready to leave through drooping eyelids.

“Done!” Caspar announced. “Alright, come on! I’ll race you there!”

“Me? Run? Absolutely not.” Even as he spoke, Linhardt found himself gathering to his feet, book in hand. Just to tease, he said, “What happened to being my bodyguard from now on? Surely you shouldn’t leave your charge to fend for himself.”

Caspar shifted his jittery weight and rolled his eyes. How he still hand so much energy after training, Linhardt would never know.

“I think you’ll be fine between here and the dining hall,” Caspar said.

“I was kidnapped right here on monastery grounds,” Linhardt reminded him. Not that he really thought there was danger; he just liked to see what Caspar would say at this point.

“Yeah, but I doubt it’s going to happen again. Like, _soon_, I mean.” Caspar shifted anxiously again. “Also, they’re serving ribs today, and I want to get there before Raphael eats them all.”

A fair argument.

“Go on then,” Linhardt sighed. “I’ll catch up with you at my own, leisurely pace.”

“Okay,” Caspar said, squinting at him uncertainly. “But if you don’t hurry, I’m not going to save a seat for you. Or extra ribs!”

Linhardt shook his head, a small smile on his face. “So be it.”

Caspar squinted at him a moment more. Then he took off with a whoop and a speed Linhardt would never even try to match. He would get to the dining hall long before Linhardt meandered his way there, that was for sure.

No matter. He had a feeling Caspar would be waiting for him at the finish line anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Linhardt isn't a Manakete like some people hoped and doesn't really have a relation to Flayn or Seteth other than his Crest, but I've seen cool theories and I wanted to show some bad guys wondering some of the same stuff too, even if it's not true. They made him sleepy with green hair! That's a classic sign of a dragon in FE!
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment below or hit me up on my [tumblr!](http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/) I get a lot of FE meta and fic related asks there, so feel free to browse through my "asks" or "fe14" or "fe16" tags for some extra stuff from me and your fellow readers that you may not see over here. Or send in a question of your own if you had one! Thanks for reading!


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